Reflexivity: a concept and its meanings for practitioners working with children and families

Reflexivity is a concept that is increasingly gaining currency in professional practice literature, particularly in relation to working with uncertainty and as an important feature of professional discretion and ethical practice. This article discusses how practitioners working in child and family welfare/protection organisations understood and interpreted the concept of reflexivity for their practice, as one of the outcomes of larger, collaborative research project. This project was conducted through a series of workshops with practitioners. The overall research that aimed to expand practitioners&rsquo; practice repertoires from narrowly-defined risk assessment, to an approach that could account for the uncertainties of practice, included the concept of reflexivity as an alternative or a complement to instrumental accountability that is increasingly a feature in child welfare/protection organisations. This article discusses how the concept of reflexivity was explored in the research and how practitioners interpreted the concept for their practice. We conclude that while concepts like reflexivity are central to formal theories for professional practice, we also recognise that individual practitioners interpret concepts (in ways that are both practically and contextually relevant), thus creating practical meanings appropriate to their practice contexts.<br /

Digital technologies for behavioral change in sustainability domains: a systematic mapping review

Sustainability research has emerged as an interdisciplinary area of knowledge about how to achieve sustainable development, while political actions toward the goal are still in their infancy. A sustainable world is mirrored by a healthy environment in which humans can live without jeopardizing the survival of future generations. The main aim of this contribution was to carry out a systematic mapping (SM) of the applications of digital technologies in promoting environmental sustainability. From a rigorous search of different databases, a set of more than 1000 studies was initially retrieved and then, following screening criteria based on the ROSES (RepOrting standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses) procedure, a total of N = 37 studies that met the eligibility criteria were selected. The studies were coded according to different descriptive variables, such as digital technology used for the intervention, type of sustainable behavior promoted, research design, and population for whom the intervention was applied. Results showed the emergence of three main clusters of Digital Technologies (i.e., virtual/immersive/augmented reality, gamification, and power-metering systems) and two main Sustainable Behaviors (SBs) (i.e., energy and water-saving, and pollution reduction). The need for a clearer knowledge of which digital interventions work and the reasons why they work (or do not work) does not emerge from the outcomes of this set of studies. Future studies on digital interventions should better detail intervention design characteristics, alongside the reasons underlying design choices, both behaviourally and technologically. This should increase the likelihood of the successful adoption of digital interventions promoting behavioral changes in a more sustainable direction

Towards Sustainability Through Incremental Innovation of a Low Cost Product: The Nespresso Case

With the increase of the population, it is imperative to expand the production of goods and services to meet the needs of individuals. Aggressive production practices are destroying and diminishing the world’s natural resources, without any consideration about its consequences and impact on future generations. In order to minimize this problem, organizations need to develop innovations, which focus on and address the economic, social and environmental dimensions, or Triple Bottom Line. This article presents a case study on Nespresso, and investigates their strategy of developing an innovative recyclable aluminum coffee capsule, and a closed-loop recycling process, with the purpose of meeting the Triple Bottom Line. Data collection was done through secondary data, video testimonies and public documents. The collected data was analyzed and validated using the Theoretical Framework of Sustainability. With the understanding of this case, it was sought to answer the following research question: How can a low-cost incremental innovation contribute to sustainability in a gourmet coffee company? The main finding is that a low-cost product with incremental innovation, designed to meet the purpose of the Triple Bottom Line and coupled with a value-sharing strategy, is capable of delivering economic, social, and environmental benefits.

Social Regeneration and Environmental Sustainability in Biosphere Reserves

Biosphere Reserves (BRs) have been designated by UNESCO since the 1970s and are located across the globe. Across continents, the challenge of sustainability meets a variety of cultures, histories, natural settings and forms of economic organisations. Although the need for compatibility between human activities and BRs has been invoked at several policy levels, solutions on how to achieve this outcome have not been considered in the same detail. The chapter then identifies a framework and a number of dimensions (without claiming to be exhaustive) that differentiate BRs, and the variety of organisational solutions that can be consistent with social regeneration and natural ‘justice’. It offers a variety of case studies from across the world

Dissecting Visual Analytics: Comparing Frameworks for Interpreting and Modelling Observed Visual Analytics Behavior

This paper provides an empirical, comparative exploration of the role of analytic frameworks in interpreting and modelling visual analytics behavior through data gathered in observational studies. The crucial research on understanding the complex and multi-faceted interplay between visual analytics tools and their users is often done through controlled or naturalistic observations of analysts engaging in the visual analytic process, followed by the interpretation of the observation data. The researchers in Human Computer Interaction and Cognitive Sciences have long used structured analytic frameworks for such analyses, where a guiding set of principles and questions direct attention to relevant aspects of the studied behavior, eventually leading to more complete and consistent analyses. Such frameworks are rarely applied in the visualization domain however, and information about how to apply them and their benefits is scarce. With this paper, we contribute a comparative account, grounded in empirical data collected in a user study with 10 participants using Tableau to analyze domain-specific data, of the types of insights we can glean from interpreting observational data using three different frameworks: Joint Action Theory, Distributed Cognition, and Situated Cognition

Sustainable Business Model Innovation: From Value Uncaptured to Value Opportunities

COVID-19 pandemic crisis threatened the stability of economy and the survival of many firms, but it has been also the chance to challenge the current economic development path and to rethink firms’ business models according to a more sustainable approach. Academic literature states that business models (BMs) innovation is a driver for the transition to sustainability. Sustainable business models (SBMs) incorporate sustainability vision in the main components of the business model, which are value proposition, value creation and value capturing. Nevertheless, the usual approach to business models, based on a positive concept of value, can underestimate some areas of potential opportunities to catch. For this reason, in this paper we suggest to adopt a novelty approach that emphasizes the negative concept of value (value uncaptured) to identify unexploited value opportunities according to multi-stakeholder view. This approach can help firms innovating their BMs towards SBMs

INTEROPERABILITY FOR MODELING AND SIMULATION IN MARITIME EXTENDED FRAMEWORK

This thesis reports on the most relevant researches performed during the years of the Ph.D. at the Genova University and within the Simulation Team. The researches have been performed according to M&S well known recognized standards. The studies performed on interoperable simulation cover all the environments of the Extended Maritime Framework, namely Sea Surface, Underwater, Air, Coast & Land, Space and Cyber Space. The applications cover both the civil and defence domain. The aim is to demonstrate the potential of M&S applications for the Extended Maritime Framework, applied to innovative unmanned vehicles as well as to traditional assets, human personnel included. A variety of techniques and methodology have been fruitfully applied in the researches, ranging from interoperable simulation, discrete event simulation, stochastic simulation, artificial intelligence, decision support system and even human behaviour modelling

EVIDENCE INFORMED STRATEGY TO IMPROVE ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING ENGAGEMENT

The ability of an organization to effectively learn and apply knowledge not only equates with highly agile performance, it is increasingly important to surviving in a knowledge based economy. Organizational learning has been widely popularized in recent decades, however defining, coordinating, and maximizing this collective learning capability within organizations remains challenging. In part this difficulty may lie in conflicted views about the purposes of learning and who it benefits, varied ways in which learning or leading it can happen, and most importantly in employee’s different motivations to engage in learning at all. This plan examines organizational learning engagement and targets changes and a solution to necessarily improve this active, immersive participation in learning. Changes required within the organization being examined include a need to balance a performance goal and managerial control emphasis over OL with a more explorative, employee centric, collaborative, learning growth strategy. Using team and authentic leadership in concert with Kotter’s model and emergent change principles, this improvement plan forwards a community of practice engagement solution and means to implement, monitor and evaluate it. Informally led communities of practice embody engaged organizational learning, accomplished through socialized relational exchange, knowledge sharing, and the disseminated production-use of knowledge artifacts. This proposed solution aims to integrate into existing bureaucratic structure of the organization and provide synergistic benefit to managerial practices already supporting organizational learning. The community of practice solution is presented as a small increment change helping lay foundations for more ambitious visions of a strongly supported learning culture emphasizing high engagement at the organization